1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to systems, methods, and computer program products for providing advanced residential telephone services.
2. Description of the Related Art
Families are faced with increasing choices associated with communication services and devices. While costs for individual services and devices have generally declined in price, when bundled together the cost per household for basic communication services has actually increased in recent decades. Until recently, basic telephone service (POTS) remained the bedrock communication tool in every American household as the voice-grade telephone service. With the increased adoption of broadband services, VoIP is expected to become a primary means of residential communication. In the case of most residential users, the wiring which brings communication to the house, “the last mile”, usually has one or two lines and most phones are single line analog devices. Any household with multiple residents experiences the annoyance of answering the phone and realizing it is for someone else. They must call someone else, take down a message, or ask the calling party to call back and leave a message on a voice mail system, if it exists. Or, the called party may not be reachable on the residential line even though they could be reached on their cell phone. Conventional residential telephone technology has not advanced in terms of overcoming these and other common limitations and annoyances.
A need arises for a technique by which limitations of conventional residential telephone technology may be overcome to inexpensively provide more useful and advanced residential telephone services.